This textbook (the first edition was published in 1991) is a summary and analysis of the main problems of modern anthropological science, systematized in three main sections: evolutionary anthropology, age and constitutional anthropology, population anthropology. The stages, factors and patterns of historical, evolutionary and individual human development, the complex medical and biological problem of the constitution, anthropological aspects of adaptation, human biological variability, genetic processes in modern human populations, problems of ethnic anthropology and racial genesis are consistently examined. In the second edition (1999) changes were made to the text to reflect new scientific data, and the structure of the book was partially changed to take into account the different preliminary preparation of students. Brief summaries at the end of each chapter systematize the main provisions of this section. The appendix includes an expanded and additional dictionary of basic terms. The text is being printed in the second edition. For university students, as well as students and teachers of pedagogical and medical universities, secondary school teachers and other readers interested in the problems of anthropology